But other objections to Berrien's plan far outweighed the point of consistency. If the United States was to decide what would satisfy Mexican honor, the plan could only have proved futile--even insulting; and if Mexico herself, it was ludicrous. Nothing would have satisfied Mexico's ideas of honor except the evacuation of her territory and the surrender of Texas. When convinced by the passage of this resolution that she had nothing to lose in the end, she would have felt still less anxiety to sacrifice her daily golden egg--the money that our armies paid out--by ending the war. Implying that she had done nothing worthy of stripes, Berrien turned the war Message and the war bill into falsehoods, and accused the United States of a horrible crime--the crime of warring upon an innocent neighbor merely to do havoc. He reduced the minima of our solemn demands to mere desiderata. He represented our expenditures, our dead and our victories as elements of a senseless farce, and left us no respectable excuse for having troops in Mexico, except that we sent them down to scatter silver dollars and study the fandango. He proposed to make this nation unique in history as combining the villain, the ruffian, the simpleton and the comedian. He attempted to revive the unendurable _status quo ante_, leave the United States without indemnity for the past or security for the future, stimulate Mexican vanity and self-confidence, and weaken the prestige of our arms in Europe. In order to preserve Whig solidarity he aimed to deprive us, not merely of California, but of self-respect.[34.31] All this Berrien proposed. Yet Webster, dreaming still of the Presidency, endorsed the plan. He was put up as a candidate by the Massachusetts Whigs on that basis; and his party, hoping to win spoils in the approaching national election by this device, quite generally accepted it. Said a correspondent of the _National Intelligencer_, vouched for by the editor as a Whig statesman, "_No Mexican territory_. Let this be the issue. Let this be the motto inscribed on the Whig banner, and victory is certain."[34.31]